by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 28, 2026 | Sermons |
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 28
Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – June 28, 2026
Romans 6:12-23, Matthew 10:40-42
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Your body matters.
It certainly matters to you. When a body part is injured, or fails, or gets diminished by age, you notice. It starts to impact other areas of your life. Even the smallest body part matters. I was listening to a podcast on the biomechanics of walking (I know, I live a very exciting life) and part of the discussion centered on how important toes are in regulating your gait and keeping your balance, which impacts other parts of your body in profound ways. Even your toes matter!
Your body matters to other people. Your bodily presence makes a difference. It means something. I was so touched last Sunday to be able to spend Father’s Day with two of my three sons. My youngest son requested the entire day off from work even though he’s trying to get as many hours as he can over the summer, and my middle son drove all the way up from Fife to be with me. We didn’t even do much other than eat some good food together, but their bodily presence was the best gift they could have given me. Your bodily presence means something too. Your bodily presence here today matters. It means something. It is a blessing to others to have you here.
Your body matters. It matters to you. It matters to other people. Your body also matters to God. Both our gospel reading and our reading from Romans show us that God is not only concerned with our souls, but our bodies as well.
As the Apostle Paul writes in our reading from Romans.
Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.
And then a bit later:
For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
When Paul refers to our “members” in this passage, he is referring to our body parts. What we do with these “members” matters. Our body parts can be used as instruments of wickedness. Lies and gossip and cruel words are spread with the tongue. Lust and covetousness are pursued with eyes. Violence is done with fists. Greed is practiced with hands. Legs can be used to distance ourselves from others. This ought not be so, St. Paul argues. Having been redeemed by Christ in body and soul, we are called to “present our members to God as instruments of righteousness.”
The predominant idea in our culture today is the idea of the autonomous self. We see ourselves as entirely independent agents, especially when it comes to our bodies. This is perhaps best summarized by the slogan, “My body, my choice.” This idea animates questions about many different controversial social issues, from abortion to physician-assisted suicide to vaccine mandates. Christians have wrestled with these issues as political problems and have sometimes come to different conclusions about how they should be handled politically. You know I am not a political preacher, so I’m not going to discuss them that way – vis a vis our relationship to the government. But as a theological matter, as a spiritual matter for us as individual Christians, when it comes to our relationships with God we cannot claim to be autonomous selves. Before God we cannot say “My body, my choice.” Our bodies are given to us by God. They rightly belong to God. Our bodies have been redeemed by God, reclaimed by God. Because this is true, St. Paul is saying, because God has redeemed us in body and soul, our bodies belong to him. And because our bodies belong to him, our body parts cannot be used in service to sin. Instead, they are to become instruments of righteousness.
So, for us personally, as individual Christians, the slogan must instead be, “God’s body, my obedience.” Instead of speaking lies or gossip or cruelty, our tongues are to become instruments that speak the truth, instruments that build others up, instruments that speak life and love into people’s lives. Instead of gazing lustfully or covetously, our eyes are to shun wickedness and instead focus on the gifts God has given us. Instead of violence or greed, our hands are to become instruments of care and service and generosity. Instead of walking away from others, our legs are to become instruments for pursuing reconciliation and community.
Jesus has something to say about this too. In our very short gospel reading for today (just three verses!) Jesus talks about how our bodily presence matters. “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me,” Jesus says, “and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.” Do you see what this means? Your bodily presence brings Christ to others! You’ve heard it said that 80% of success is just showing up? This is true for ministry too! 80% of it is just being there, because simply being present with others as a Christian brings with it the very presence of Jesus. It brings the very presence of God. “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me,” Jesus says, “and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.” There need not be any heroic gestures. You don’t need to bring any great wisdom or eloquence. Simple acts of hospitality will suffice. “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple,” Jesus says, “truly I tell you – none of these will lose their reward.” When legs are used to show up, when hands are used in ways as simple as sharing a cup of water, Christ is present. God is there. And so, your body matters. Your bodily presence matters. What you do with your members matters.
We are becoming an increasingly disembodied culture. Our technology is constantly pulling us out of our bodily surroundings to focus our attention elsewhere. My wife and I were recently walking down at Windjammer Park, and we saw a guy flying a drone while wearing a big headset that completely covered his eyes. I assume he was looking through the camera on his drone, and I’m sure the views were spectacular – but while he was doing that, he was completely oblivious to the people walking past him. He stood there awkwardly, completely entranced by his electronic do-dad.
It was easy to shake my head at this, but is it really so different from the way all of us are so often enthralled by screens of various kinds? I’m not saying it is always wrong or bad to use screens. I use them all the time. But it does have a way of feeding this sense of disembodiment, living in our heads while ignoring or neglecting the reality right in front of us. It has a way of leading us more and more into living a life that is virtual – which means not quite real.
This disembodied culture can lead to a disembodied Christianity. We can start to think that faith is only in our heads, that the gospel is just content we can download, that the Christian life is just having the right ideas or feelings and that it doesn’t really matter what we do with our bodies.
But this is not Christianity, friends! God did not send us an idea. God came to us in the flesh through his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was not a virtual savior; he bore the cross in a real human body. His resurrection was not an uplifting thought in the minds of his disciples; he rose with a real human body, with a heart that resumed beating and a stomach that got hungry and hands that still bore his wounds.
True Christianity is a deeply embodied faith. Through his physical suffering and his very real death and his bodily resurrection, Jesus has redeemed us, body and soul. And so, both body and soul belong to him. And because they both belong to him, our members, our body parts, are to become instruments of righteousness. Our slogan must become: “God’s bodies, our obedience.”
Because Christianity is a deeply embodied faith, Christ’s forgiveness is delivered to us bodily. Thank goodness, because we need it! Our members, that is, our body parts, are often instruments of sin as we struggle to live into the new obedience to which we are called. But when we were baptized, water was put on our bodies. Christ claimed us, body and soul, as his own. In Holy Baptism our bodies were marked with the cross of his forgiveness forever. When we receive the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s body is received bodily, so that we can be renewed in this forgiveness. Grace upon grace is put on and in our bodies as we bodily gather to receive this very real gift of Christ’s forgiveness.
And as we live into this gift of forgiveness, our bodies and all their various parts begin to move more and more at the direction of the one who gave his Body for us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 23, 2026 | Sermons |
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 21
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – June 21, 2026
Matthew 10:24-39
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Like many of you, I’m thinking about my dad today on Father’s Day. I was thinking this past week about how he taught me to ride a bike. I was an anxious kid, not much of a risk taker, so I imagine it wasn’t easy for my dad to get me going on a two-wheeler. I was scared of crashing. I was scared of skinned knees. I was scared of embarrassing myself in front of the other kids on my block. My dad never said that those things wouldn’t happen. He was honest about the risks. He was honest about the dangers, the possible negative outcomes. But still, he challenged me to take off those training wheels and go. And did those things I was so afraid of actually happen? Yes. Yes, they did. I did crash! I did skin my knees! I did embarrass myself!
But my dad wasn’t just there to challenge me. He wasn’t just there to push me beyond my fears. I also remember him running alongside me as I learned to ride. When I crashed, I remember him already being right there beside me to pick me up. It was this fatherly love, expressed in both challenge and care, which eventually helped me learn the balancing act that is riding a bike. It eventually led to the exhilarating freedom of riding on two wheels without fear.
Our gospel reading for this week is a continuation from last week. Jesus continues to challenge his disciples, pushing them beyond their fears to go out into the world to share the gospel. Jesus is honest about the risks. He is honest about the dangers, the possible negative outcomes.
Jesus tells them that just as he was facing persecution, they could expect the same. The servants shouldn’t expect better treatment than their master! If Jesus got called nasty names like Beelzebul (which translated literally means “lord of the flies”), they could expect to be called something even worse!
Jesus tells them they could expect to be maligned. They could expect to be in conflict with others. Jesus tells them he didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword. Now of course Jesus came to give us peace in a sense – he came to give us peace with God, the peace beyond all understanding – but following him would not necessarily lead to peace with others. The disciples could expect to be rejected and persecuted and ostracized. Sadly, some of this might even come from their own family members.
There will be crosses to carry as they follow him, Jesus tells them. There will be times when it is difficult, times when it is painful, times when it is humiliating.
But Jesus doesn’t just warn them about the challenges they will face. He also gives them a promise. Jesus tells them that their Heavenly Father will be right there with them through it all. He tells them that their Heavenly Father will be there to care for them, come what may.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” Jesus asks. This is a rhetorical question. That’s how much sparrows actually cost back then. And I need to tell you, they weren’t being bought as pets! You see, sparrows were a common source of protein in Jesus’ time. Some of you here today no doubt will be horrified to learn that sparrows were netted and plucked and put on skewers and roasted and eaten, with a little Ranch dressing on the side to dip them into. As strange as it might sound to us to eat these cute little birds, in Jesus’ time they were considered heavy hors d’oeuvres. They were plentiful, and so they were cheap.
And yet, Jesus says, not one of them fell to the ground without the Father knowing about it. God sees each one. God cares for each one. God values each one. And you, Jesus goes on to say, are of more value to him than many sparrows! God sees you and cares for you and values you even more! Much more! Exponentially more! In fact, Jesus says, God has every hair on your head counted!
Leading up to Father’s Day, I’ve been thinking not only of my dad, but also about the incredible blessing of being a dad. When Jesus talks about every hair on our heads being counted by our Heavenly Father, it reminded me of how when our boys were babies, every little thing about them was precious to us. We counted and kept everything. Things that nobody else would care about were noted and kept and treasured by us – even things that are probably gross to other people. I think I still have a box of their baby teeth somewhere. For a while we even held onto the dried-up stumps from their umbilical cords. We also kept a tuft of hair from each of their first haircuts. We didn’t count each strand, but we carefully taped them into their baby books, and those little tufts of wispy hairs are so precious to us.
Parental love is like that – and this is how our Heavenly Father loves us. God sees us. God cares for us. God values us. Even the hairs on our heads are numbered and held as precious. And so, Jesus says, we do not need to be afraid.
The challenges and risks and dangers Jesus describes are still with us, in varying degrees.
As we seek to share the gospel, we can expect to be called names. We can expect to be maligned. We can expect to be rejected and ostracized, just like he was – and is. I don’t encourage spending time in the comments sections of social media platforms, but if you do, you will soon see that even the most innocuous Christian references can be met with the most vitriolic, hateful responses. As Christianity recedes from our culture, you can expect more maligning, not less. As we seek to follow Jesus, we run the risk of coming into conflict with others. This doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong. Jesus makes it clear that it comes with the territory.
As we seek to be faithful to our Lord, these divisions might even surface within families, Jesus says. This danger was perhaps more pronounced in Jesus’ time, when following Jesus often meant breaking from one’s parents in tragic ways. This is not something God wants to see happen. The fourth commandment upholds the divine order of fathers and mothers being at the heart of family life and worthy of honor. But at the same time, Jesus knows that the call to follow him will sometimes result in divisions even within families, even between these most holy and cherished relationships. Sadly, sometimes it still does.
Jesus is honest about the fact that he has come not to bring peace, but a sword. That is to say, some will face violent persecution for their faith. This happened to the disciples themselves, and it continues to happen today in places like Nigeria, where our Christian brothers and sisters are being murdered at a shocking rate, with Anglican clergy especially being targeted recently by anti-Christian terror groups.
Our Lord Jesus is honest about the risks, the dangers, the potential negative outcomes that may come our way not only in spite of our Christian faith, but in many cases because of it. And still, he challenges us to take up our crosses and follow him.
But Jesus doesn’t just challenge us, he also gives us a promise. He promises us that his Father is our Father. This in itself is a remarkable thing!
My theologian-friend Chad Bird from the 1517 Network wrote a piece about this this week, and I’d like to quote part of it. He writes:
It is difficult to imagine a more audacious act than to stand before the Creator of the world and to name him “Father.” And mean it. And not only to mean it, but to act and speak as a child acts and speaks before a loving and doting Dad.
It’s shocking. It’s exhilarating.
And it’s beautiful beyond words.
To call God “Father” is simply to live in the space which Jesus created. To move from residing far from God as his enemy; or on the other side of town from him as a stranger; or down the street as an acquaintance; or in an adjoining house as a servant; and to move into our own bedroom as a child in his family.
You see, when we live in this house, when we move into the room built by Jesus, we inhabit the home not merely of a Master or Lord or King, but the one who’s given us his name and made us his own, now and forever.
“Our Father”: two of the most amazing words ever uttered.
Brothers and sisters, today Jesus describes God as “your Father,” and this Heavenly Father of yours values you more than many sparrows. This Heavenly Father is running alongside you as you learn to find the balance that will carry you forward in Christian faith and discipleship. This Heavenly Father is holding on to you even now. This Heavenly Father will be there in the painful moments, the wipeouts, the crash-and-burns, to help you, to heal you, to raise you up.
Because of this Fatherly love, expressed in both challenge and care, we do not need to be afraid. We can instead go forth in the exhilarating freedom that comes from trusting that this loving Heavenly Father sees us and cares for us and is near to us, today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
